Recently I bought a 1962 for thunderbird. It ran and drove wonderfully but the starter sounded a bit tired. This passed Saturday, out of no where the starter broke. I would crank it over and the engine would start but a horrible noise would come out of the starter. After pulling the starter I found that the drive great jammed itself in the engaged position and I figured the noise must've been the ratchet fail safe on the drive gear. So I ordered a new starter and drive gear, threw in a new solenoid and hooked it all up. Unfortunately I didn't see that the cable to the starter was touching the starter case and when I went to crank, the cable welded itself to the case of the starter and destroyed the starter motor. I pulled it out and have now put in a new new starter motor with the same drive gear. After making certain the new cable that I bought was not touching anything I went to hook up the battery. I put the neg cable on and touched the pos cable to its post and it threw a huge spark and I heard the starter turn. It's as if the ignition is on and the circuit is being completed when I hook up the battery. I haven't tried anything yet and I'm not good with electrical stuff. My first instinct was to check under the dash for a short of signs of a recent burn but I only really found some old looking wiring. I don't want to rewire the whole thing right now though. I figure it has to be a simple short somewhere. Im not familiar enough with this car yet to know where to start. Please help! I'll try to answer any questions
Probably time for a new solenoid, more than likely the contacts "welded" themselves together when you shorted the cable.
I wonder if the first problem is actually causing the new problem? It seems like the same issue to me. What do you think? ..in other words, I don't think the new problem is because he shorted the cable. I think the problem was already there, somewhere.. I would start by disconnecting the big cable that goes from solenoid down to the starter. Then I'd check to see if there is power to the S terminal on solenoid when the key is "on" but not all the way to start. There should be no power on the S term. with key ON. Then if that is OK, then also see if there is power on the disconnected large terminal on solenoid, where the cable was that went to the starter. There should be no power there unless the key is in cranking postition
Thank you all for the responses. I actually have a few solenoids here that are good so I might try one of them. I thought about trying it but I didn't want to further mess anything up. I'll try it though...
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